About The Author

A lifelong lover of soccer, the beautiful game, he served from January 2010 until May 2013 as the Director of Communications and Public Relations for the North American Soccer League (NASL).
Raised on the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the old NASL, Krishnaiyer previously hosted the American Soccer Show on the Champions Soccer Radio Network, the Major League Soccer Talk podcast and the EPL Talk Podcast.
His soccer writing has been featured by several media outlets including The Guardian and The Telegraph. He is the author of the book Blue With Envy about Manchester City FC.

13 Comments

GreggSeptember 13, 2006

Kartik,

Do people really care about the USL besides Rochester?

The play is as bad as ever with no teams advancing in the U.S. Open Cup.

i agree with sams army. snobs on this site do not respect mls and us soccer. they do not respect soccer anywhere in our region. mexican leagues are among the best in the world and mls is catching up having defeated the champion of your beloved english league chelsea.

soon mls and mexico leagues will form a super league to rival the champions league of europe. a league is part of it also. romario the best player of brazil is playing for the miami team as is zinho. lots of top players in all division here in america.

Well said, Hernandez. The euro bias on this supposedly American website is sickening.

I too agree that MLS is quickly emerging as a top worldwide league and that the A league/USL is also very good.

The Mexican League has been a top interntational league for years. The intensity and skills level in Mexico is excellent. Sure the game isn’t as fast as in England but I would argue the skill level is much higher and defending is much much better.

Like you, I watch American soccer first and like to also see Mexican games and games from Brazil and Argentina. All of this focus on European leagues and Euro players is flat out hype by the media. The best Mexican and American players through the years have stayed in the CONCACAF region to play their club ball.

Sams Army, you make some good points. By keeping players in MLS the US national team can develop some cohesion and distinct style of play. Having all of these players in far flung leagues has not helped the USA.

I am Mexican and love our leagues. The entire national team except for one or two players stays at home and we develop a good team with good understanding of one another. The US has basically had two national teams: one for MLS based players and one for European based players. The first time they were mixed was right before the world cup. Is it any wonder why we failed so badly?

1) The MLS is great for the devlopment and future of soccer as a whole in america.

2) The USL is a good feeder system for MLS.

3) Young players need the MLS for playing time.

4) In order for our national team to get better, after our young players get the playing time in MLS, they need to go overseas to play against better competition and learn from the great coaches in those leagues.

Landon Donovan will never get better than what he is until he goes overseas.

I never knew so many people cared about the USL. If I had realized that I would have posted more often on the goings on in the league.

The play in USL is of an inferior quality but the league is at least run in professional manner unlike MLS. That’s why some top foreign players have come to USL, because of the strange salary structure in MLS and being owned by the league. Most of those good foreign players are gone, but in the old days of the A-league several good international players came and flew under the radar of the soccer media here because they were not in MLS earning scraps.